The invention relates, generally, to telecommunications systems and, more particularly, to an integrated network for providing narrowband services such as telephony, and broadband services such as digital video, analog video, and ATM data.
It will be appreciated that telephony services presently are provided over a narrowband network that is designed to provide voice to the home. A separate analog video service network, such as a cable television network, provides analog video service to the home. Moreover, both telephony service providers providers and cable television service providers are introducing broadband technologies such as asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) services in their respective networks to provide video or other broadband services. It is possible that ultimately these networks may become redundant insofar as some of the services they provide; however, it is likely that some services will remain the prime domain of one or the other of the networks such that a consumer that desires all of these services would be required to subscribe to a plurality of networks. From the consumer's perspective, the need to deal with two or more separate network operators is inconvenient and confusing. Moreover, because the networks are developing independently, it is also likely that different architectures and protocols may ultimately evolve. As a result, the cost of maintenance, implementation and expansion of services on two or more separate networks will be higher than if a single integrated network is developed, and this cost ultimately will be passed to the consumer.
It would be advantageous if both broadband and narrowband services could be provided to the home over a single network. The integration of these various services into a single network would provide a simpler and more user friendly network for customer interface. Moreover, the cost for implementation, maintenance and expansion for a single integrated network would be less than for a plurality of independent networks each providing some, but not all, of the desired services. These savings could be passed on to the consumer resulting in lower total cost for the services to the customer. Finally, the use of a single integrated network would provide a consistent quality standard and facilitate the standardization of premise equipment and other network interfaces.
One problem in the development of such a network is the need for an effective and economical mechanism for converting a standard interface, e.g. TR-303, provided by standard synchronous time division multiplexing digital signal carrier DS 1 s/E1s from the voice switched network into a virtual tributary group for transmission to the field elements.